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This is the result of a request from the people in the Self-Indulgent Parent thread. Ask any questions about your progeny and hopefully we'll have some sage advice. Or just rub them with sage, I read that in a book somewhere.

Just thought I'd share our pediatrician's reasoning on the non-zinc-based diaper creams after my wife reminded me. Our pediatrician's opinion is that, although the zinc-based creams (Desitin, Boudreaus too I think) do a good job of soothing skin, they're also really sticky, and so wiping them off can cause irritation and leave you in a loop. Aquaphor (their main product anyway, I think they do have zinc-based creams too) is similarly effective but wipes off very easily. Apparently for more mobile kids, that's not a good solution because their movement can lead to movement enough that it'll involuntarily wipe off the cream, but for infants, our pediatrician says Aquaphor or another zinc-free baby cream is best. No idea if that's right, but thought I'd pass it along!

In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
jrralls: I’m gonna make it the whole year! And I’m sure no one will ever re-quote this post to me when I inevitably cave!

But "urgh, dad, I hate you, I wish I was dead" is soooo cliched a thing a moody teenager would say that I wouldn't necessarily put too much stock on it.

I'm reading a book on understanding boys and socialization growing up. Between that and my own experiences, I would lean towards the boy need some emotional support of some type, but good luck with figuring out the best way to get in there.

I think it would be worth trying to find a family counselor for you and your partner and son to talk to, though I'd try to get a better sense of the underlying feelings, rather than frame it as "suicidal thoughts", barring more incidents. My 8-year-old son made similar comments a few years ago. My inclination at the time was to write it off: being a kid can be tough. I figured he was dealing with some self-esteem issues but not genuine suicidal thoughts.

My own son is fine now, mentally and physically, and I actually think that I was correct in my assessment. But because of my assessment, I wasn't going to seriously consider counselling or help. Things went really poorly and we did end up in counselling, after some rather extreme turns.

I was someone who considered counselling was an extreme solution. I have no idea what your feelings about it are, so I guess I'm really just giving advice to my past self: It's not that big of a deal, and it can make a huge difference. My son might have been ok on his own, but I think the counselling we did helped him tremendously. If your son is suffering from depression or self-esteem issues or whatever else, having a non-parent advocate can really help him get some solid footing--at least that was my experience. And, of course, if there are any real suicidal impulses or thoughts, those should be brought up and dealt with. More likely, though, he's struggling a bit, and some help could make a big difference.

My son (over 2) finally crawled out of his crib and has thus graduated to a big-boy bed. He has also changed from a champion sleeper to a monster who will not lay down at either nap or bed time. He won't lay still, even if we (my wife, I or both) are laying with him. Bedtime has become a (literal) waking nightmare.

Any tips on how to get my champion sleeper back other than building a wall on the Southern border of his bed?

PSN: UpToIsomorphism

oilypenguin: That is a terrible joke and I'd ask you to be ashamed of yourself but you've been around here long enough that I know you'll be proud of it.

I’ve got no answers for you but I do have commiseration. We’re in the same boat and have taken to being very stern with ours when he gets up after bedtime, sometimes with time outs in the dark as a way to bring down the energy level. I don’t like it and it doesn’t work all that well, but it’s the best we have so far.

Our youngest (almost 2) is going through a similar phase right now. She still sleeps in the same bed, but the last few weeks she rebels when we lay her down to sleep and when she wakes up at night (instead of just falling back asleep like before).

We tried to comfort her a bit at first, staying in the room with her or picking her up. But in the end, we had to just lay her down, leave the room and rinse/repeat until she fell asleep.

First time we tell her she has to sleep, second time we just look at her, starting the third time we even avoid eye contact. Slowly but surely it took less and less time for her to give up and just fall asleep, and yesterday she didn't protest at all for the first time in a month. Her nighttime awakenings occur later and later too, which turned out to be tricky yesterday. It was already 5AM, too late to put her back to sleep but too early to rise (theoretically ;-)). We contemplated taking her into our bed for another hour, but decided against it. She has no concept of time, so it would link "protesting" with "cuddling reward" in her mind regardless of how 'late' it was in the night. Unfortunately it was my turn so I just got up with her

tl;dr version for what worked for us: be consistent, just lay her down to sleep again and again. Never stray, do not take her into your bed unless you're willing to do this forever, all will be well, everything is temporary, once you solve this something else will crop up

Hangdog - I just wanted to thank you for chiming in there. Glad to hear your son is doing better these days. I agree that therapy can be really helpful in giving the whole family some tools when / before things get rough. Parenting is tough even when everything goes comparatively smoothly. Part of being a parent is teaching your kids you don't have to be perfect. The hard part of being a parent is sometimes remembering that for yourself.

That's the one we were gifted by a few people at our shower so we've been trying it. It certainly seems to soothe her.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

Sudocrem is fantastic stuff.

Eleima wrote:

Sudocream is really effective. I don’t have as much use for it now, but sometimes, the little one still wants some.

Interesting, I shall search.

We use Desitin on a mobile 10-month old and it seems to work ok. The critical piece is that the skin has to be competely dry before putting the cream or whatever on, otherwise you are locking the moisture in and making it worse. After wet wiping, I pat dry with the new diaper and then pat dry even more with my bare hand. Sure, it is a little weird, but baby really enjoys the butt pat jiggles and giggles a lot at it. After a few seconds of open air time I put on cream and diaper. The daycare won't do the complete pat drying, or they only dry with plastic gloves on, so they end up making the rash worse half the time and we have to clear it up over the weekend with more open air time.

Yeah Rezzy I have chastised my girls on occasion for only eating carrots and cucumbers but not eating their pizza. I don't know what's wrong with them, no one ever had to encourage me to eat more pizza!

We got some of the best news ever yesterday: the daycare where our 2.5 year old goes, which had previously told us they would not have a spot for our now 7 week old son until September, now has an opening for him as of March 4th, which is exactly when we were planning for him to start at a different daycare on the other side of town. So now we will not have to do a 3rd separate pickup/dropoff location, we will know and trust all of the teachers and staff at his daycare already, and we will get a 15% discount off our our 2.5 year old's tuition. We will end up saving a ton of time and worry and hassle, and pay around $150 a month less in doing so. Woowoo! Finding daycare is such an incredibly stressful thing to do, and I am so relieved that, knock on wood, I may have figured this out for the last time ever.

Finding daycare is such an incredibly stressful thing to do, and I am so relieved that, knock on wood, I may have figured this out for the last time ever.

I think we have given up and my wife is giving her notice to not go back at the end of maternity leave. She feels her job isn't worth doing for only half her salary (daycare is expensive) and missing out on time with our daughter.

My wife was torn about going back to work, but it had to be done. Our mortgage and the rest of our bills and expenses, I couldn’t cover without working at least ten hours of overtime per week...

Which I would have gladly done, except my wife is not a stay at home mom type. Taking care of the baby by yourself is very stressful. I couldn’t do it, and I don’t know how she did for the 12 weeks after I went back to work. My wife’s way of dealing was texting me hyper dramatically whenever the baby was stressing her out. It made me unable to focus on work and often I would leave early to come help with the baby. Thankfully my superiors understood and this wasn’t reflected on my performance appraisal. The wife would not put up with being alone with the baby an extra ten hours per week.

We had a daycare picked out before Scarlett was born. I still like them. The wife mostly does, but often thinks about going on another leave of absence. We can’t afford that: daycare is $1400 monthly and my wife makes $4400, so it’s not like we aren’t making money in the equation.

The main reason she talks about staying at home is that the baby has been sick pretty much since she started daycare three weeks ago, and because my wife doesn’t like the school district she works in (she’s a school psychologist and works in a poorer district). But the baby seems to really enjoy daycare. She smiles when we get there, and when we pick her up. We get pictures and updates of her all day through an app called Tadpoles. I justify bringing her there by telling myself that she had to get her immune system going at some point, but the wife is constantly worried we are going to end up with her in the NICU.

One issue with daycare is that the baby doesn’t sleep great there. Well, she doesn’t sleep great at all. Anyway, she gets 3-4 naps that last 20-45 minutes. I drop her off at 7am and wife picks her up around 3:30-4pm. I get off at 5 and half the time she’s asleep by the time I get home. It can leave me feeling guilty: my only significant time with her now typically is half hour feedings at night when she’s half asleep and the hour and a half or so before she goes to daycare. I’m hoping that balances out some as she gets acclimated to daycare.

She’ll usually sleep from 5pm til 11 or 12, then wake up hungry. She eats and goes back to sleep within half an hour, but after that long stretch of sleep she’ll be up every 2 hours. Unfortunately the last couple nights she’s been waking up in a crying fit between 9:30 and 10:30. The first night I was exhausted and threw something small across the room out of frustration. Tonight my wife smacked me awake, cursed at me to go take care of the baby, and then stormed into the bathroom saying we can’t have this every night. It’s been stressful on the marriage.

Scarlett has a very sensitive digestive system so she’s on a formula called elecare. The cheapest it comes is from Amazon where it’s $168 for a two week supply (6 cans). Off the shelf at retail it’s $45 a can. A lot of people end up getting it covered by insurance but ours isn’t playing ball just yet. We’ve had a gastroenterologist write them a letter of medical necessity but haven’t gotten a response yet.

We have completely shut the door on the idea of a second child, which was already mostly decided. She occasionally sees a male baby and talks about wanting another, but there’s just no way.

BE, sounds like typical stuff but I know it is hard when you are in the middle of it and stressed out. Just know what you are going through is normal and those problems will go away. She is probably waking up crying because she is sick or overtired, it will pass relatively quickly, and you'll be done with those night feedings before you know it too.

For what it's worth, we found it easier to raise two in a lot of ways, one of which because we already had sunk costs in, and the the second way was because we didn't have to schedule play dates and day care to socialize her and force them to interact with a peer.

And yes, so we don't always have to play with a kid whenever we're at home. That gets draining after a few years. Sometimes you just want to boot up the game machine and shoot things.

In that way, I don't think either of you should feel guilty about daycare, so long as the center is up to standards. Aside from having her exposed in a controlled environment to the local microflora, it's probably also good for her socialization and language skills to interact with peers and slightly older kids.

Very young kids can be hard on parents, so that's why it's usual to have grandparents stay over for a few years. Or you can live with them, that also works, too. We didn't and well, I don't really remember much of the first few years of both of my kids' lives. It was whirlwind of work and domestic labor. My wife used to joke that I only got to rest when I was at work.

Basically, it's a long haul thing, so you have to think about what's sustainable for the kid and for your partnership. Different people have different breakpoints, and as cold as this may sound, you need to find a way to squeeze the most work out of yourself and your wife, without causing illnesses, mental or physical.

Might be good to invest in earplugs. You use it when you're "on." Once you can plainly see that she's crying, hearing it for hours on end does nobody any good.

And earplugs aren’t needed because 95% of the time she doesn’t cry. She’s a really well behaved baby. It that inexplicable half hour when one of us has just gotten to sleep all the more perplexing and frustrating.

Yeah it sounds normal. Babies grow fast enough and they get to the point it's far more interactive, then they're so active you can't keep up. Don't write off the idea of having a second one! My wife was adamant we weren't having a second one but the boy grew up so quickly and he was so easy after hitting about 2 that we went for the second one. Like larryC said, the second one can help with having them keep each other company. But it's not for everyone, especially when the kids fight or you have everyone sick at the same time. Parenting is honestly a full time job and any stay at home parent is a hero.